Would You Be So Kind As to Do Me the Favor...?

Bernadette's relationship with Our Lady begins with a gesture of poverty. As Jesus came to the world in a humble manger, so did Mary come to Massabielle, a muddy grotto filled with rubbish that washed up from the river, dressed in pure white! Bernadette was soon to discover in one of the purest dialogues ever exchanged between a human being and the Mother of God, that there is a poverty worse than destitution, hunger, cold, ignorance, social degradation, illness, death, and so on. This poverty is that of human sin. In her own physical poverty, she is enriched with this knowledge and grace. She discovers that true riches consist in the mercy of God, who offers Himself to sinners and transforms them ... if they consent, to His will. Our Lady speaks respectfully to Bernadette in her own dialect. The young girl soon consents, at first to a simple request ... to meet the Lady again for fifteen days ... and begins her lifelong mission.